Today was the last day of the ISI conference in Hong Kong. This time together was very sweet for us. To be able to share with friends who have a passion and love for the same things, for the same people, it was as if we were suddenly put in the presence of over 200 kindred spirits. It was such a blessing. We learned so much from each other about international students and the best ways to serve them. There were quite a few ideas that we will be taking back with us when we get back to Texas. One of the special things about this particular time was that we as a Dallas, Texas team were able to contribute in many ways because we were able to share what God was already doing in our midst. Praise the Lord that we could make a difference in even other ministries through His grace.

While we were here though, while we were here there was a great tragedy back in Arlington… but this illustrates the importance of this conference and the networking and partnering it brings. During the breakfast of the first day, our co-worker friends from Michigan asked if we knew a young lady from Taiwan that moved from their area to ours. Lisa and Charis had been meeting with her and her daughter for some time now and so we did. Well, our Michigan friends told us the sad sad news that she just passed away via a stroke a couple of days earlier in Arlington. Wow… that was a total shock. She was only 35 and left behind her young husband and three year old daughter. Well, we weren’t sure what to do but we wanted to figure out a way to minister to her husband whom we met one time when he visited for Thanksgiving. All we had was her contact information and not his and we were thousands of miles away.

Our colleague Ron had to stay home due to Doctor’s orders in recovering from prostate cancer surgery. It was a struggle for him to be home. Anyway, we decided to Skype him early Sunday morning in Texas from Hong Kong to see if he could muster someone to visit the husband. Ron was much more recovered that we thought and was able to visit the husband… but we still didn’t have his contact information. We tried several avenues and in the end it was a volunteer from Michigan who closely interacted with the couple who sent us the information. Armed with this information, Ron was able to visit the grieving man and his daughter and prayed with him and encouraged him. The husband also requested information about the process of becoming a single father after death. Several of our staff had gone through a similar situation and we were able to let Ron know about another of those who happened to also be “stuck” at home because of illness from New Jersey.

It was certainly a tragic situation and Lisa and I are both touched by everything that happened but because of conferences like these we were able to pool the resources necessary to help this hurting brother from Taiwan that way HE needed to be helped.

Tomorrow we leave for Japan. We are just about finished with the Sino side of our trip. Two more stopovers in Shanghai left… but first a week in Japan… Looking forward to visiting our friends there!